pleases--at least, in composition. Though I think no one equal to
you in that department, or in satire,--and surely no one was ever
so popular in both,--I certainly am of opinion that you have not
yet done all _you_ can do, though more than enough for any one
else. I want, and the world expects, a longer work from you; and I
see in you what I never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of
your own powers, which I cannot account for, and which must be
unaccountable, when a _Cossac_ like me can appal a _cuirassier_.
Your story I did not, could not, know,--I thought only of a Peri. I
wish you had confided in me, not for your sake, but mine, and to
prevent the world from losing a much better poem than my own, but
which, I yet hope, this _clashing_ will not even now deprive them
of.[87] Mine is the work of a week, written, _why_ I have partly
told you, and partly I cannot tell you by letter--some day I will.

"Go on--I shall really be very unhappy if I at all interfere with
you. The success of mine is yet problematical; though the public
will probably purchase a certain quantity, on the presumption of
their own propensity for 'The Giaour' and such 'horrid mysteries.'
The only advantage I have is being on the spot; and that merely
amounts to saving me the trouble of turning over books which I had
better read again. If _your chamber_ was furnished in the same way,
you have no need to _go there_ to describe--I mean only as to
_accuracy_--because I drew it from recollection.

"This last thing of mine _may_ have the same fate, and I assure you
I have great doubts about it. But, even if not, its little day will
be over before you are ready and willing. Come out--'screw your
courage to the sticking-place.' Except the Post Bag (and surely you
cannot complain of a want of success there), you have not been